Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, says his party will replicate the success of
the Eastleigh by-election across the country and turn it into “a national
earthquake”.

Mr Farage said Ukip is now in a position to use its surprise second place position in the poll as a springboard to challenge both Labour and the Conservatives for seats in the next general election.

Mr Farage said: “We will take this tremor in Eastleigh and turn it into a national earthquake.”

His words mark a new confidence in the party since it came only a 1,700 votes short of winning Eastleigh, which would have given it its first seat in Parliament.

Last week Mr Farage hinted that he would be willing to strike an electoral alliance with the Conservatives, but only if David Cameron was replaced as party leader.

Now, in an interview in the Financial Times magazine, he has spoken of his disdain for Conservative attempts to undercut UKIP’s support by promising a referendum on British membership of the EU in 2017.

Mr Farage said: “They’re coming to play on our pitch now. They’re all at sea. They are being blown around by the wind. They’re more split than they’ve ever been and the problem is that nobody in his party believes Cameron any more.”

In 2009 Ukip returned 13 MEPs to Brussels, coming second, and many commentators now believe it stands a realistic chance of topping the polls at the next European elections in 2014.

But Mr Farage is also aware of the need to temper expectations among his growing band of supporters, especially when it comes to their expectation of winning seats at Westminster.

“It’s not guaranteed, because we’ve got a hell of a long way to go. And we’re going to need some senior figures to come and help us do that,” he said.

While happy to capitalise on concerns over immigration and fears of loss of independence to the European Union, Mr Farage rejects claims that Ukip is a party of male, middle-aged bigots – or “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” as Mr Cameron described them in a 2006 interview. The party has been criticised for aligning itself to hard-line anti-immigrant parties such as the Italian Northern League and the Slovak National Party.

But Mr Farage said: “Actually we’re picking up quite a lot of support from cool, trendy youngsters, who view Europe as an anachronism.”

The son of a City stockbroker who himself went to work in the Square Mile as a commodities broker, Mr Farage became an MEP in 1999 and leader of Ukip in 2006. Four years later, during the 2010 general election campaign, he was almost killed when the light aircraft he was in crashed in a Northamptonshire after a large Ukip banner it was trailing became tangled in its tail and rudder.

He said: “I thought: this is probably it. I barely want to think about it, but I was upside down, completely caved in. I could hardly breathe, I ws covered in fuel oil. I thought, this thing is going to catch fire. I promise you, that is very, very scary.”

That year Ukip polled just 3.1 per cent of the vote, now opinion polls put it around 12 per cent.

David Campbell Bannerman, former deputy leader of Ukip and now a Conservative MEP, said: “I think the accident made him more ruthless and more single-minded.”

There have been complaints that Mr Farage has begun to treat Ukip as his fiefdom, with Marta Andreasen, a former party MEP who quit in a dispute over candidate selection, saying: “Either he gets what he wants or you’re out.”

But Mr Farage rejects the idea he has become a dictator.

“I wish I was more of one really. I don’t think I’m as tough as I ought to be,” he said.